Giovanni Blasio
Lombardy, second half of the 17th century
Still life with fruit, flowers, fish, tableware and a little monkey
oil on canvas, cm 100×150
The composition of this canvas, a large still life, features various objects that have been carefully arranged and framed by precious draperies and carpets. To the left, seated on one of the large vases in embossed silver with refined decorations evoking mannerist elegance, a monkey is busy adorning itself with earrings and necklaces that it has just discovered in a casket full of treasures. This part of the painting is echoed, balancing the composition, by the right side, where we find fish laid on a gilt plate and a flower vase. According to Giancarlo Sestieri, the work is characterized by “a combination of Lombard and Emilian influences, and may be placed on the artistic border between Emilia and Lombardy”, with a possible attribution to Giovanni Blasio, a painter who has not received his due recognition in studies of art history, but who was first described by Ferdinando Arisi, a researcher who has been able to unite an initial nucleus of works around a signed canvas that has been presented at the Galleria della Spiga in Milan. The characteristic style of this artist is closely related to Felice Boselli, a painter from Piacenza (1660-1734), but there are equally strong Lombard influences in his work – Sestieri guesses Blasio studied under Baschenis – some- thing which indicates that this artist “played an anything but secondary role, as connecting link between the Lombard world of the cities of Bergamo and Milan and the Emilian one that centered on Piacenza and Parma”.